Data / Quotas / Who the SC list leaves out: 201.4 million SCs counted, all Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist

Methods and sources

Who the SC list leaves out: 201.4 million SCs counted, all Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist

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What this shows

How the Scheduled Caste people counted in Census 2011 split between Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists, in each State and UT and by caste.

What it does not show: How many Christians or Muslims come from castes on the SC lists: no official count exists, because the 1950 Order bars them from the Scheduled Castes and the Census does not ask them.

Sources

  • Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India (Ministry of Home Affairs), Census of India 2011, Table SC-14, “Scheduled Caste population by religious community (for each caste separately)”, 31 State and UT files, SC-14. Primary source.
  • Department of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India, The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 (C.O. 19), as amended, paragraph 3. Primary source.

Analysis by The Dalit Project, as on 9 Oct 2026.

Read these with the numbers

  • The Census asks whether a person belongs to a Scheduled Caste only of Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists, following paragraph 3 of the 1950 Order. No official count exists of Christians or Muslims whose families come from castes on the SC lists.
  • Census 2011 is the latest published count. The figures are fifteen years old, and the States and UTs are as they stood then: Andhra Pradesh includes Telangana, Jammu & Kashmir includes Ladakh, and Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli are separate.
  • State cells of 1 to 4 people are shown as “<5”.
  • Castes are named as each State’s list names them. The same caste can sit on the lists of several States under different names, and its members in one State are not added to those in another.

Key terms

Scheduled Castes (SCs)
The castes listed, State by State, in the Presidential Order made under Article 341 of the Constitution.
The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950
The Presidential Order that holds the SC lists. Its paragraph 3 says that no one who professes a religion other than Hinduism, Sikhism or Buddhism is a member of a Scheduled Caste.
Table SC-14
The Census of India 2011 table of Scheduled Caste population by religion, for each caste and each State.
Generic Castes etc.
A line in Table SC-14 that is not a caste on any State’s list. The table does not say whom it covers.

Changelog and corrections

Version 1.0.0: First version: 201,378,372 SCs from 31 State and UT files of Census 2011 Table SC-14.

How corrections work. Every change is listed here.

Cite this

The Dalit Project, “Who the SC list leaves out: 201.4 million SCs counted, all Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist”, version 1.0.0, data.dalitproject.org/caste-by-religion/, as on 9 Oct 2026.